Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2003 Narrative immediacy and first-person voice in contemporary American novels Amy Faulds Sandefur Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Sandefur, Amy Faulds, "Narrative immediacy and first-person voice in contemporary American novels" (2003). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 584. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/584 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. NARRATIVE IMMEDIACY AND FIRST-PERSON VOICE IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN NOVELS A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Amy Faulds Sandefur B.A., LaGrange College, 1993 M.A., State University of West Georgia, 1995 August 2003 Acknowledgments I have been fortunate to have a network of people supporting my efforts in pursuing a doctorate degree and especially in completing this study. I wish to thank my dissertation director, Peggy W. Prenshaw, who provided counsel while allowing me to be in command of the project. I especially appreciate her willingness to accommodate the special needs that arose as I wrote while residing a long distance from the university. I am grateful as well for the guidance and insight generously provided by the other members of the dissertation committee: John Lowe, David Madden, James Olney, and Alan Fletcher. Words fail me as I try to express appreciation for my family, a crowd of folks who sustain me with their unwavering support. I attribute the completion of this work in large part to their encouragement. I must especially thank my husband Mark, who, despite my claims at times to the contrary, is likely the most patient person I know. As a final note, I am grateful for my friends at the Caribou Coffee in Roswell, GA, who provided good company as well as good coffee during the countless hours I spent writing while in their shop. ii Table of Contents Abstract ……….………………………………………………………………………… iv Introduction ..…………………………………………………………………………….. 1 Chapter One: Temporal Fluctuations and Narrative Immediacy in Kaye Gibbon’s Ellen Foster………………………………………………………. 28 Chapter Two: The Male Bildungsroman in the New Millennium: Ken Wells’ Meely LaBauve ………………………………………………………… 56 Chapter Three: Finding “I” within “Us”: Personal and Representative Voices in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple…………………………………………. 83 Chapter Four: Female Artistry and Narrative Immediacy in Lee Smith’s Fair and Tender Ladies ..………………………………………………112 Conclusion: Variations in Proximity: Immediacy and Retrospection in First-Person Voice ....……………………………………………………………..147 Afterword ………………………………………………………………………………181 Works Cited ……………………………………………………………………………184 Vita .………….…………………………………………………………………………189 iii Abstract This study of first-person fictive narration analyzes a selection of contemporary American novels so as to understand and describe more fully a literary effect I call immediacy. I employ the term immediacy to define narrative situations in which little durational gap exists between experience and narration and in which little ideological and emotional distance is communicated between the narrating persona and the subject self. The following chapters provide a close examination of narrative techniques employed by writers in the creation of immediacy and argues that both the tone of the novels and their themes of maturation and self-identity are attributable to strategies of narration. The novelists studied here use these strategies to reflect the complex, dichotomous nature of self-identity and to re-envision modes of self-representative writing such as autobiography and Bildungsroman. Each of the texts considered features a narrator-protagonist who faces and overcomes oppressive and restrictive circumstances. As in previous scholarship, this work argues that the act of self-narration is constitutive of a character’s achievement of self-actualization. More specifically, I argue that the narrator’s close proximity to experiences, an aspect of fiction often overlooked, contributes significantly to the impact effected by the narrative voice. By composing a narration that occurs seemingly in conjunction with experience, the writers studied here depict the changing process of identity development rather than a narrator’s reconstruction of it through reflection. Through the fluidity that results, writers develop protagonists who defy conventional definitions. Thus the immediacy characterizing the narration of these works signifies iv agency achieved by the marginalized protagonists. Additionally, the flexibility of the form aids novelists in achieving the dual purposes of portraying an authentic-seeming individual voice and conveying social commentary. The concluding chapter examines the salience of narrative immediacy in novels in which a substantial temporal gap exists between narration and experience. This broadening of the study illustrates that narrator proximity is indeed worth study, not only for extending the parameters of narrative theory, but also for enhancing our understanding of the intricate ways in which narrative voice interacts with theme and cultural context. v Introduction The subject of this dissertation is a selection of contemporary American novels that employ “immediate” first-person narrators and develop themes of maturation or “coming of age.” The primary works selected for analysis are Kaye Gibbons’s Ellen Foster (1987), Ken Wells’s Meely LaBauve (2000), Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (1982), and Lee Smith’s Fair and Tender Ladies (1988). I employ the term immediate narration to identify situations in which little gap exists (or is communicated to the reader) between the protagonist and the narrator. For example, the Ellen Foster who narrates the novel is close in age and emotional maturity to the youthful protagonist Ellen. A familiar example from the nineteenth century is Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. To have a protagonist narrate his or her own coming of age seemingly in conjunction with experiencing it is an infrequently created narrative situation. Not surprisingly, then, the vast majority of literary critics who consider novels modeled after life writing have focused on those characterized by reflective or retrospective narration and have yet to grapple with the implications particular to immediate narration. In this work, I shall embark on such grappling with the goal of extending the critical discussion regarding intricate issues such as narrative truth, narrative identity, and narrative authority. The directing focus of this work is the study of the narrative techniques used to create immediacy in these examples of a particular sub-genre of the novel—the coming of age story narrated in the first-person point of view. I shall examine how such techniques work to reflect the complex, dichotomous nature of self-actualization and how they are used in the re-envisioning of the modes of self- representational writing. A more far-reaching purpose is to present scholarship that contributes to a fuller understanding of the flexibility and nuances of first-person voice. 1 Without question, point of view is a principal element of narrative. Indeed, some claim that it is the central one.1 It is not surprising, then, that point of view has been cited as “the most frequently discussed aspect of narrative method” (Martin 133).2 Because literary perspective is a slippery notion, the task of studying it can certainly become “formidable in scope” (Lanser 14). Susan Sniader Lanser concludes that “despite substantial attention to narrative point of view by critics of this century, the concept remains elusive and its boundaries unclear” (13). Nonetheless (as Lanser also acknowledges), this critical attention has proven fruitful, if not fully satisfying. One of the most influential contributions is Gerard Genette’s distinction between the focalizer (the one who sees) and the narrator (the one who speaks). Wayne Booth’s schema of narrators and types of narration, along with his concept of the implied author, has likewise had a substantial impact on narrative studies.3 Additionally, the studies by Bertil Romberg and F.K. Stanzel provide particularly thorough explanations of numerous narrative situations. Especially relevant to my purposes is Romberg’s work, the only book-length study of first-person narration. These scholars have clearly made valuable contributions, but as Lanser observes, point of view criticism is characterized by an “isolation of narrative perspective from its function within the specific literary text” (19). As in Lanser’s work, this study also seeks (although through somewhat different means than Lanser’s4) to elucidate the “complex links between ideology and technique” (18). Lanser works to overcome the detachment of literary text from its social context. Similarly, this work examines connections between narrative and cultural imperatives. In the existing critical work on narrative voice, some conclude